Alumni Updates: Elle Rathbun

Jan 30

Welcome back to Alumni Updates!

This time, hear from Elle Rathbun:

Hello, NEUROns! I'm so excited to know the NEURO Club is still going strong! I matriculated at UChicago as a QuestBridge Scholar in 2014 and immediately joined the NEURO Club. After my first year, I served as the Director of University Enrichment, then Vice President, and finally President. I was also on the boards of Phoenix Bio and Booth’s student newspaper Chicago Business while also being involved in a range of other RSOs (e.g. ArtShould, Scientia from The Triple Helix, STRIVE Tutoring) and jobs (e.g. shadowing coordinator and manager with the Hospitalist Project). My primary research experience at UChicago was with the Thinakaran lab, where I joined as a volunteer and went on to complete my honors thesis on the effects of modulating the expression of an Alzheimer’s Disease susceptibility gene in oligodendrocytes (fun fact: I was the first to defend an undergraduate honors thesis in neuroscience at UChicago!).
After graduating in 2018, I stayed at UChicago and joined Perozo lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, studying the electrophysiological properties of the Venus flytrap. I stayed involved in organizations and joined Brains! on campus, becoming a volunteer science teacher at Ludwig Van Beethoven Middle School.
I entered UCLA’s Neuroscience Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program in 2020, joining Tom Carmichael’s lab in the Department of Neurology to research biological mechanisms underlying cellular responses to ischemic stroke in the context of novel biomaterials. I plan on continuing in academia as a post-doctoral scholar, and have absolutely no idea what will come after that!
Looking back at my experiences and successes —professional and personal — I genuinely have the NEURO Club to thank for so many of them; I advise any undergraduate to not underestimate the power of knowing people, strengthening relationships, and asking questions.